Dendrochronology
by Sybil Rowan
Summary: Crawford gets premonitions to let him know who to add to his life. I used the "Word of the Day" on Dictionary dot com for inspiration. Happy Birthday, WingedPanther73!


Author: Sybil Rowan

Pairing(s)/Characters: Schwarz developing into an unconventional family.

Rating: T

Summary: Crawford gets premonitions to let him know who to add to his life. I used the "Word of the Day" on Dictionary dot com for inspiration.

Warnings: None.

Author's Notes: This is a birthday fic for my hubby! Happy Birthday, Bunny! Enjoy! And I do have to thank Romeo Sami for prodding me to do this for my special hubby.

Disclaimer: Weiss Kreuz, its names and characters belong to Koyasu Takehito, Project Weiss, Marine Entertainment and Animate Film.

Beta Reader: Birthday Bunny :)

Date: March 25, 2015 7:03 pm

_Dendrochronology: __the science dealing with the study of the annual rings of trees in determining the dates and chronological order of past events._

Crawford saw Schwarz much like the rings of a tree. Each member built on the next. He remembered thinking on how to build the thick layers around himself, how to get the people he needed. The "how" came to him easily enough, and "when" was never a question for him; he always knew the when. The future was never a mystery, it unfolded in layers and layers inside Crawford's mind's eyes.

He remembered those hellish days at the Rosen Kreuz Academy. Training, they called it. He quickly, carefully learned to school his emotions and use a veneer, but he needed something else to surround him. Someone four years younger than him was taken into the secret academy used to train physic children, and Crawford found his first layer.

He was a German telepath that was so traumatized in life among Mundanes, evil, vicious, non-psychics, that he had cast off his name and chose one word to go by: Guilty- the German word was Schuldig. Guilty for what, Crawford didn't know or care. His visions of the future saw that this one would be by his side for many, many decades. Schuldig would be a loose cannon, but a very effective one.

And Schuldig would be that first layer Crawford needed to build on. Schuldig was powerful enough to shield their machinations against Eszett when they were presented to the three, old goats. They were deemed worthy to be sent on a few minor tasks. On one of those tasks, Crawford woke from his hotel bed with a vision. He was about to run into his next layer the following evening.

Crawford and Schuldig had to assassinate a psychiatrist that was too close to discovering psychics really did exist. Crawford had no qualms about killing the man, since he'd be like the other Mundanes and try to use his kind. He detested non-psychics to his very core. But then after the killing his vision nagged him, and he went to the ward with the asylum inmates.

Schuldig followed him without question; he wanted what Crawford had promised him, world-wide disorder so their kind would be able to live and breath without Mundanes. Schuldig had learned to trust implicitly in Crawford's precognition. Crawford's visions were never wrong.

They found the room with a man in a straitjacket. This was the next layer in Crawford's life; this super-strong man that couldn't feel pain and was freakishly fast. He and Schuldig freed Farfarello.

As they were driving off, Schuldig read Farfarello's numb mind. It seemed he had murdered his family when he was very young. There was a blank spot in his memory as to why he had done it, but Crawford didn't care. This man was going to be a trained dog and blend with Schuldig in harmony. Would the dog get loose from time-to-time? Yes, but Crawford would foresee that easy enough in order for Schuldig to get him in line.

Crawford's layers were building.

There was just one more layer he had pictured in his mind's eye. The child. Really, he was going to be a malnourished and maltreated teen. On that rainy night Crawford collected his last layer. He was eating his dinner and almost purged it back up as his mind swirled on the vision of the boy for the second time in eight years. Farfarello continued to eat, totally immune to the sensations.

Crawford's body was wracked in pain. Schuldig was gripping his head and wallowing on the kitchen floor in agony. Crawford, for all his time at Rosen Kreuz, never had felt a power this strong approaching. The time was now to finally meet this boy. Crawford struggled, got himself together, and went to the front door. He pulled it open before the boy's knuckles hit the smooth wood.

Crawford gave a devious smirk, dropping his plain, subservient facade. "I've been waiting. Come in out of the rain, Nagi Naoe. Your plate is on the table."

Schuldig joined Crawford at the front door. "This kid is why you made the forth plate, isn't it?"

"Yes. You felt him approach, too," Crawford said.

"You're scaring the kid, Brad. I can read his mind like an open book," Schuldig gloated, waving his hand in the air with a sly, wolfish sneer.

"We'll see about fixing that," Crawford said. After all, it wouldn't do for such a tremendously strong telekinetic to walk around and get snatched up by Rosen Kreuz when Crawford needed him for his plans to plunge the world into darkness.

Brad turned back to Nagi and said, "I'll explain everything over dinner. I know you haven't eaten in a long while. I promise that'll change."

"Promise?" the boy asked in a shaky voice.

Crawford bent over and met him eye-to-eye. "I only make promises with our kind, and even then, I'm very, very particular on who among our kind I trust."

Nagi followed Crawford with a somber air. It wasn't long before flattering words, a non-abusive environment, and regular food convinced Nagi to become the last layer in Crawford's life. But of course, he knew he had a responsibility to each layer in his life. That was to nourish each of them, give them a place to call home, and one, solid purposes in their lives.

End.


End file.
